Outside the palace
by Faceslikemine16
Summary: When Mycroft's daughter is attacked it doesn't take a genius to deduct someone is after one of the Holmes brothers. But Adelaide Holmes Brilliant and beautiful has plenty of secrets of her own, some of them she is willing to die for.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N None of this is mine, so I er generally presume Mycroft's gay that js my personal canon but this idea wouldn't go away so here it is. I hope you enjoy. T/W for mentioned physical assault and swearing. **

John Watson had walked into see many strange and downright disturbing things during his time at Baker's Street. However, a teenage girl never… no never. She was about eighteen years old very pretty with enormous wide spaced blue eyes, wavy dark hair she was wearing dungarees, a red boyfriend cardigan and clumpy black boots a row of silver rings through one ear another through her nose. She smiled at him briefly as he came in but turned back to her book an Orwell: Homage to Catalonia  
"Um excuse me?" He asked leaning over his knees and breathing heavily.  
She raised an eyebrow. "You're excused."  
"Thank you- I mean no what? Who are you? And how on earth did you get in?" He looked around the flat.  
"You can't just come into other people's houses. Oh God, oh God." He put his head in his hands. "You're not are you?"  
She smiled serenely at him. "A what?"  
"A fan!"  
She snorted and then began to laugh and laugh and laugh in a way, which reminded him unnervingly of Sherlock.

Speak of the devil. "JOOOOOOOHHHHN!"

Sherlock rushed up the stairs and skidded into the room he stopped in front of the sofa and glared at the girl.  
"Oh it's you. You do know how to pick your time… brat."  
"Fuck you Sherlock. " She sighed stretching out her legs onto the coffee table.  
"How wait? How do you know each other?" John asked rubbing at his forehead. They both ignored him.  
"What's the matter now? Run out of money?"  
"I'm fine."  
"Sherlock can you tell me what the hell is going on?"

Sherlock grinned, "Oh I've forgotten the pleasantries John meet Adelaide, Mycroft's daughter Adelaide, John."  
"Mycroft has a daughter?"  
"It's lovely to meet you." She smiled again.  
"Now how did you get in?" Sherlock mused aloud.  
"Maybe I rang the doorbell." Adelaide suggested.  
"Mrs Hudson's out." He reached over and picked up her hand. "Climbed up the drain pipe, child's play."  
"So you say. My turn, now where oh where have the doctor and the detective been? You've been running your faces flushed and your breathing rates are fast. You haven't had time to rest so and no offence that limits it to a two mile radius." She gave John a long glance  
"One and a half. Your shoes and trouser cuffs are damp hasn't rained in two days, grassy residue Queen Mary's gardens no Regents now why?"  
She screwed up her face tightly "Why? Why? Thomas Grayson s released three months ago after the attempted murder of his mistress and two less than savoury business associates. Obviously, seeing, as the pigs are all fools, upon release the former two met their ends. One each month, nothing to do with pattern, the bastard's just so thick he needs that long to plan, presumably you intended to ambush him on his way to the third. Made an bit of a error and accidently jumped on two people in the midst of a lewd act and seeing as Dr Watson is the same colour of my lipstick I know I'm right. Very boring, child's play."

"Amazing," John exclaimed in his usual way. "You're a Holmes alright." He said almost unsure whether he meant it as a compliment or an insult.  
Sherlock just scowled at her "Or maybe Mycroft just told me?" She said tiredly.  
"Mycroft's not in London." Sherlock said, walking over the armchair opposite and sitting down picking up his violin  
"He can text,"  
"You never told me you had a niece." John said.  
"She used to run away from school every six months or so, to make sure Daddy kept paying attention." Sherlock plucked at the instrument.  
"Or maybe I read all of that here." She fiddled with her hair and pointed to a pile of newspaper cuttings pinned to the table. "You don't always need to be a genius. Deduction not really my thing and fuck off Sherlock I have a headache."  
"Perhaps it's because of the makeup your wearing an unusually large amount on the left side of your face."  
Adelaide stiffened her eyes narrowed "I can wear makeup if I want."  
"Oh please you're a hippy. Whatever you have on is hardly organic." Sherlock rose from his seat and ploughed on. "And despite the unusual temperature tonight, your still wearing your cardigan, your hair is deliberately pulled over to your left you keep on adjusting the strands, what are you hiding?"

He leant over and pushed the hair out her face a dark scar held together by four black crosses sliced across her forehead. Methodically as if he was working with one of his corpses instead of a cold passive girl, he rubbed the makeup from her face revealing the shadow of a bruise.  
"Sherlock." John warned.  
He pulled at her cardigan and took a step back blossoming blue finger mark across her biceps. Adelaide roughly pulled her cardigan away from him and folded her arms across her chest. When she spoke, her voice was strangely calm.  
"He escaped," She said "Mycroft's still looking for him I think he wants to use his bollocks for next round of golf on Sunday."  
Silence passed through the room as the meaning Sherlock's deductions and Adelaide's words became clearer.  
"Why are you here then?" He said crossly  
"Why?"  
"Yes why you'd be safer by far at my brother's house if he's still at large. Why are you here and more importantly why did he let you?"  
"I ran away ages ago why would I want to go back to him?" She said fishing out a cigarette and her lighter from her front pocket.  
"Sherlock," John's voice dropped to a growl "She's been seriously hurt, would it kill you to be nice?"  
"Yes actually, you know John my earliest memory is biting him when I was two. Three stitches he's never forgiven me"  
"Don't be ridiculous, you can't die from being nice. I suggest Adelaide you go home, before Daddy starts worrying, which could be some time but off you pop anyway."  
Sherlock turned away from her dismissively. Adelaide stayed where she was smoking. Sherlock wondered into the kitchen and loudly began to make a cup of tea. After five minutes, he popped his head back round the door. Adelaide was staring into space she looked and smiled.  
"Well about that... you see you know what father's like, he was being all overpro-"  
"Yes I know I know life squashing, controlling, hurry up."  
"Fine whatever so I said it doesn't matter because." She pulled a face "Because I enjoyed it."

"We should call Mycroft." John was pacing backwards and forwards, rushing his hands through his hair his movements betraying the slight hint of a repressed limp. Sherlock continued to pluck tunelessly at his violin.  
"We are not doing anything." Sherlock said.  
"Don't you feel any responsibility as an uncle? We can't keep a vulnerable child who only happens to be the daughter of the most dangerous man in Britain here."  
"She's not a child, she was eighteen three months ago at which point she promptly left home."  
"That's besides the point…"  
"On the contrary John it is the point and I was absolutely not suggesting we kept her here. You call Mycroft, I cannot imagine he is too surprised to learn he has fathered a masochist her mother did marry him after all. Someone picks her up kicking and screaming as usual and I won't have to see her until next Christmas when all of this will have blown over."  
He strummed a loud triumphant note and reached over for his nicotine patches. John blocked his way.  
"I don't understand you someone lays a finger on Mrs Hudson and you throw him out a window five times."  
"Seven times,"  
"But this bastard beats your niece to a pulp and you just…"  
John raised a hand to his forehead and shook his head "You know what, I'm going to check she's alright. See if the wizard gives you a heart while I'm gone."

John entered Sherlock's room where Adelaide had disappeared a few minutes ago to his surprise she was not crying but was staring at herself wearing just her underwear in the mirror.  
He immediately covered his eyes. "God I'm sorry, it's just living with your uncle things like knocking sort of disappear…"  
"It's alright it's only a bikini made from cloth." He peeked through a scissor gap in his finger. She was still half-naked. He twisted away.  
"God! Er are you alright?"  
She laughed, "I bet you thought I'd be crying?"  
"Well I suppose."  
"The daughter of the Iceman doesn't cry." She said firmly.  
"I see…"  
"The Holmes family are old school porsh. Stiff upper lip and all that, not Made in Chelsea let's talk about our feelings to a fucking camera."  
She was dressed. In a Black Sabbath t-shirt that fell down to her knees.  
"One of Shirley's favourite bands," She explained.  
"Right."  
Wearing that enormous and unlikely t-shirt, her makeup removed to reveal the true extent of her injuries, her rings out she looked even younger and more fragile.  
"Why are you looking at me like that? I promise it is there's a poster somewhere down his wardrobe" She asked a smiled tugging at her split lip.  
"Oh no reason," He lied "I'm just well shocked that Mycroft has a wife (though the wedding ring is a bit of a giveaway I suppose) and a daughter for that matter."  
She smiled even wider showing white even teeth.  
"You mustn't be shocked because he hasn't my mother died nine years ago."  
"I'm sorry…"  
Adelaide waved this away "Don't be, I don't think it was much of a life, mother was young and pretty when she married him and young and pretty when she died. Cancer it was very quick. She had been raised to not have a single original thought in her head, an object instead of a person just like her mother before her. Both of them dolls married to a man with power, influence and money. The only thing she had to do was to be a mother and a good wife. And she wasn't much good at that she couldn't have anymore after me and Mycroft never really loved her…" She trailed off.  
"Do you think I could stay here for a bit? It won't be long I'll sleep on the couch."  
Before John could say a word, she said thanks and picking a blanket up from the cupboard as well as nicking several of Sherlock's pillows left the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for all the favourites and follows, but reviews greatly appreciated. x**

She slept and slept. The next day her hair was curlier a sign she had washed it and the only evidence she had risen since the day before. .

By the next morning, Sherlock actually looked a little worried. "Can't you get her to wake up?" He hissed.

"I...I well she's your niece."

"Which transpires to her being Mycroft's daughter, which is incredibly inconvenient if she stays here much longer my brother is going to pay us a visit and frankly I would like to avoid this."

Sure enough when John woke at seven 'o clock the next day and began to wonder into the kitchen after a cup of tea and found the most dangerous man in Britain sitting on a chair drawn close to the sofa his ever-present furled umbrella resting on his knee. Sherlock wearing his tangled sheet was sitting on the furthest away chair his violin tucked under his chin.

"Now," Mycroft was saying to the mass of dark curls spread across the pillow. "I know you've had a hard time since mummy died."

Adelaide raised her head angrily. "Why do you always have to bring that up? It was fucking ages ago! It doesn't matter."

"It mattered enough for you to wet the bed for the next two years." Sherlock commented.

"FATHER!" She shouted diving back into the covers.

"Don't be ridiculous darling of course I didn't tell him." Mycroft said it what was at least for him a soothing sort of voice.

"No of course he didn't blatantly obvious really."

"SHERLOCK SHUT UP OR I'LL TEAR OFF YOUR FUCKING TOUNGE."

"Now, Now children behave. Language Adelaide, there are more intelligent ways of expressing oneself."

With another groan, Adelaide sat up.

"Fine" she said, she too rising with her sheet.

"But it's only because I can't stand your brother!" She hopped off to the room.

Mycroft treated the room to a smile that clearly said teenagers.

Ten minutes later, she returned wearing the same clothes as the day, they had found her as well as make up hiding all traces of her ordeal.

"I'll be off then."

"Yes get back to your job." Sherlock said making rabbit ears around the word job

"Job?" That was Mycroft.

"I'm slightly impressed niece, keeping something from daddy not very easy. I'm talking about the job that's making her enough money if it was in any way legal a member of the lower tax bracket."

Adelaide raised an eyebrow "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Just get in the car." Mycroft ordered. "And don't even think about it," He added as an afterthought.

"Ciao ciao." Adelaide said swinging out the room.

The three men stood there until the front door slammed.

"For future reference little brother, do try not to talk about Adelaide's blackmailing and sex life in front of her father."

"Not good?"

"No." John muttered "God no."

"There's something I wanted to mention, last night a twenty one year old woman with Adelaide's colouring. Assaulted in a very similar fashion, I can't imagine she's shared any details with you?"

"No, excluding the sudden desire for s&..."

"NOT GOOD!"

"Adelaide received a single laceration five inches long across the back of her thigh. So did the other woman."

"Is it same man, with some kind of obsession?" John suggested.

Mycroft pulled a face.

"No." Sherlock scowled "He's dead."

"Adelaide killed him."

"But she-"

"She won't remember she used his own knife on him seconds before passing out herself. The amount of morphine and sedatives they gave her has effectively wiped the memory."

"You should..."

"Have you met my daughter Dr Watson? I suppose pop psychology would call her a tad dysfunctional and at any rate, I always hoped she would be at least thirty before her first murder. I think you know where I am going with this. Her connections with you and I are too obvious. We can presume she was not the real target, someone she's pissed off wouldn't send a hit man. Here are the case files I expect results."

Walking to the car, Mycroft's thoughts turned to his dead wife, he did not like thinking about Cynthia he had not even wanted to marry her, but she was pregnant and duty came in all sorts of forms. So, he did.

"Darling," Mummy said on the day of the wedding. "I'm so pleased!" She looked at Sherlock sixteen years old outrageously bored taking every opportunity to badger Mycroft about giving him a lift home and generally making him want to punch him in the face. Which he actually did later that evening after catching him snorting up in the bathroom.

"I'm so glad one of you…" She said.

Cynthia had been beautiful on her wedding day simple lace and pearly silk. He thought sometimes, it was the last happy day of her life. He was busy after the honeymoon work ate up massive chunks of his life not allowed. Cynthia spent most of her time doing yoga and shopping. They did not really argue, they just moved awkwardly in different circles. It was a hellish birth. He was in China when it began and could not leave, it took him three days to get home and her labour had almost taken that long. It had taken a caesarean, which resulted in a haemorrhage almost killing her, no more children the Doctors said. But, they gave him a small sweet pink and white little thing with a lick of dark hair and big blue eyes. He loved her in a way he loved nothing else and Cynthia when she woke up did as well but instead of bringing them closer the marriage got worse.

He could not remember when Cynthia started drinking, around the same time she started crying. He would come home late to find Adelaide three years old, her arms wrapped around her legs, trying desperately to comfort her mother, sobbing out of fear and tiredness herself. He would scoop up the child and take her back to bed screaming. Return and round on his wife.

"What on earth, were you thinking?"

Tears would run down her face like pearls.

"I love her, you know I do sometimes I think it's going to kill me."

As she grew up, they said Adelaide was very clever gifted, bilingual by the time she was four, trilingual by seven, reading age over eleven. O, so the experts said. He was not so sure, but then he thought Sherlock was an idiot so what did he know really? He was not around very much then. Most of the time she would wonder into the room see him for the first time in two months and say. "Hello Daddy, what does anti establishmentarianism mean?" She picked up words from everywhere. Well it was just as well, she was the only one making noise in the house. Cynthia had gone very quiet.

However, when she turned eight, Cynthia became sick. The diagnosis was never terminal, the doctors thought she could have struggled, but she did not, she did not fight. She went out like a light. Feelings, mourning, emotion did not come naturally to him at all. His daughter holding his hand by the graveside her tears determinedly absent from her face.


End file.
